This invention relates to a weather strip installed in a divided manner to both a left side and a right side of a folding top of an open car.
Referring to FIGS. 1 to 3, a prior art relating to the invention will be described. There has conventionally been an open car comprising a folding top 1 on the roof. This folding top 1 is provided with a plural number of divided rails 2 both in the left side and the right side of the open car, as well as a weather strip 20 which is also divided into a plural number of divided members 21, and each member is installed to a corresponding divided rail 2.
In this prior art, the weather strip 20 forms a roughly straight line where a front end surface 22a of a die mold part 50, formed in a front end portion and a rear end portion of each divided member 21, and a rear end surface 22b of an adjoining die mold part 50 make a resilient contact with each other when the folding top 1 is in a closed position.
This weather strip 20 comprises a hollow seal portion 12 which makes a resilient contact with an upper end portion of a door glass 3 to provide a sealing performance. Further, there is another type of weather strip which comprises a seal lip portion 22 besides the hollow seal portion 12, which also makes a resilient contact with the door glass 3.
The conventional weather strip 20 comprising the seal lip portion 22 besides the hollow seal portion 12 is superior in the sealing performance compared to the former one which comprises only the hollow seal portion 12 for a resilient contact with the door glass 3, since two members are comprised for the contact with the door glass 3.
However, according to this conventional weather strip 20, although both the front end and the rear end portions thereof are provided with a certain degree of hardness by forming them with die mold parts 50, 50, the seal lip portion 22 is formed in a lip shape, so that the seal lip portion 22 consequently lacks hardness and is easily deformed. Therefore, when the folding top 1 is in a closed position, adjoining seal lip portions 22, 22 that are located next to each other overlap with each other if the seal lip portion 22 is deformed, so that the front end portion and the rear end portion of the adjoining seal lip portions 22, 22 cannot make a resilient contact tightly. As a result, there arises a problem that rain water or washing water invades into an inside of an automobile through the unsuccessfully contacted area.